Credit union wants ideas for promoting savings contest

Natasha Henry of Laurel, Maryland writes:

“I’m a communications writer for a federal credit union in Maryland. Earlier this year, we launched a year-long savings campaign in which members who make monthly deposits into their accounts get a chance to win several thousand dollars in cash prizes through monthly and quarterly drawings. When members continue making deposits every month, they have a chance to win a $20,000 cash prize in December of this year.

“I’m interested in learning what type of affordable publicity ideas your Hounds would have for a campaign of this type. I’d like to present some low-cost promotional ideas and pitches to see if any of them can be done.

“Our level of media coverage is typically within local newspapers, national trade journals and local TV news station coverage. However, we have been mentioned in one national paper to my knowledge, which was the Wall Street Journal, on the topic of employee wellness programs. “

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Comments

How fitting that Joan mentioned a possible angle of tying in teaching money habits to children–especially since National Credit Union Youth Week is April 20-26. That is celebrated by credit unions around the country. I think that’s a great angle!

How ’bout tying into the credit crisis– how to SAVE for a downpayment rather than getting a home equity line to cover the downpayment on your ARM. That 20K cash prize would go a long way towards a decent downpayment

Since you are so close to Washington DC, crafting a partisan pitch might be effective.
Local media might enjoy reporting on a story where Members of Congress and their staffs actually tried to SAVE money instead of spending it!
Which party will be better at saving, Democrats or Republicans? See if you can round up a credit union member from both parties and have them available for interviews, promoting their party as the party of saving money.
Good Luck!

Similar to what Jennifer says, I’d think people are having a hard time keeping up, let alone saving. How about putting together a tips booklet of the little ways people can save/find the money for the deposits?

Example, a few less coffees or DVD rentals each month, throwing change into a jar (which you might also provide with your logo on it), taking lunch instead of buying every day etc.

Send the booklets to account holders, have them available at the branches, and definitely put them in new account packages.

If you do this, don’t forget to send a press release with excerpts or free copies to the media when it’s ready for distribution.

As Joan said in the post prior to this one, bloggers are your friends. There is a HUGE personal finance blogging community, and this is exactly the type of thing many of them would be interested in. Be sure to read blogs and research them before you send your press release, of course. Try googling “Carnival of Personal Finance”, a weekly roundup of the best posts of the week/month, and you should be able to see lots of different blogs that may work for you.

Thanks everyone for the ideas you’ve posted so far. And to Cheryl with her idea about the savings tips–you were right on.

Each month I produce a savings tip like the ones you suggested to be published in our monthly newsletter, TowerLine. The savings tips tie into the gifts that we give away to members in the branches whenever they make a deposit into their “Club” accounts.

I like the idea of packaging the newsletters and sending them on to publications with the press release.

I think what I’ll do is package them with an updated version of the release during the last quarter of the year along with an invite to perhaps a planned year-end congratulatory gathering of some sort for the December $20,000 prize winner as well as the monthly and quarterly winners from earlier in the year.

By the way, archived issues of our award-winning monthly newsletter are available on the homepage of the Web site http://www.towerfcu.org, under News and Events.

Cheryl Pickett gave some good ideas about creating a tips booklet and using it as a promotional tool.

“How about putting together a tips booklet of the little ways people can save/find the money for the deposits? Example, a few less coffees or DVD rentals each month, throwing change into a jar (which you might also provide with your logo on it), taking lunch instead of buying every day etc.”

These are excellent suggestions. What about adding rather than subtracting? Suggest matching what you spend on the above things instead of living without them?

“Send the booklets to account holders, have them available at the branches, and definitely put them in new account packages.”

Position them as an incentive — get a booklet when you open an account with us or make an appointment to speak with one of our advisers. You’ll find it much easier to SELL the booklets in large quantities to credit unions when you help them see how they will increase their membership and their holdings through the distribution of the booklets. Address the benefits as much as possible. A tips booklet has a longer shelf life for top of mind awareness for the credit union.

And for Natasha about sending a tip of the month, you also have a salable product there by putting those tips into autoresponders and licensing that series to a credit union. Joan created her 89-autoresponder series about press releases. You can do a tip of the month (or week) autoresponder series to license out rather than give it out.

I’d like to present some bolder publicity ideas for you to consider because basically bank marketing has been monkey see monkey do for so long so if you do anything out of ordinary you’ll get pub:

If you are into real estate lending why don’t don’t release your local foreclosures figures. Challenge other banks to release their figures.

If you are lowest then you can brag about how you care for the community so much that worked hard(harder than other banks) to keep your bank members into their homes.

Basically up to now banks are doing a dismal job at this when I know for a fact it would be easy to do if they just changed a few of their procedures the problem is they just won’t they’ve stuck their head in the sand. Ok enough on my soap opera here is some other ideas.

Along the line of savings. Why not release the savings rates of your executives and employees.
Kind of practice what you preach type of thing.
How can you ask other people to save when your own executives aren’t doing it either? You’ll get lots of pub because no one else in banking is doing such a thing.

Finally why don’t you open a Tibet Independence Savings Account. Could be several angles with this.

Open the account for the activist in the Tibet independence movement. Now why would you do this?

One you want to encourage peaceful protest ala MLK.
So in each city along the Olympic Torch route protesters can use the TISA to stage protest only in peaceful manor otherwise they don’t get the money. Banks should encourage free enterprise/freedom but few bank executives speak out publicly to advocate for it. Take a stand.

These ideas or something like it are low cost with lots of potential for publicity.